Musings and Sometimes Rants about the non-equal status of Fathers in Family Law and Parenting. Additionally periodic comparisons to the treatment of men compared to women in other areas including health care.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Domestic Violence Industry Covers Up Half of Problem

FathersCan, the National Voice for Canadian Fathers, estimates that more than two billion dollars of taxpayer money is distributed annually by all levels of government to various shelters and other domestic violence programs in Canada. This figure is based on information from Statistics Canada, Status of Women Canada, Health Canada, and other similar provincial agencies and government departments.

The entirety of this sum is provided to programmes and shelters that purport to provide services to women who are the victims of domestic violence. Interestingly, and tragically, not a single cent is provided to any program or shelter to provide services to men who are the victims of such violence.

Health Canada (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/pubs/women-femmes/violence-eng.php) defines domestic violence as “Acts that result, or are likely to result, in physical, sexual and psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such an act, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty whether occurring in public or private life”.

Nowhere in that definition is recognition of the fact that hundreds of thousands of Canadian men are victims of domestic violence, as defined by Health Canada, at the hands of their female partners. Jeremy Swanson, National Director of FathersCan notes that this alarming and seldom reported statistic is borne out by Statistics Canada information.

Mr. Swanson stated, “In 2005, the last year in which Statscan has released information, it was reported that the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS) on Victimization indicated some 653,000 women and 546,000 men in Canada were the victims of spousal violence in the five years preceding the survey, or about 7% and 6% respectively. The Survey goes on to point out that nearly all domestic violence victims (95%) who seek out assistance from social agencies, government programmes, or shelters are women. The Survey totally ignores the fact that there are no such agencies, programmes, or shelters for men even if they wanted to seek them out.”

He went on to point out that there are about 550 shelters for woman in Canada, as reported by Statistics Canada, yet “they failed to even mention that there is not even one single shelter for abused men in the entire country”.

StatsCan reported that in 2006 twenty-one men in Canada were killed by their female partner, an increase of 75% from just one year previous and a continuation of an increasing trend. Yet in 2006 the number of women killed by their male partner decreased by 10% from the year previous, continuing a trend of 5 years of continual decline.

“Men in Canada are victims of domestic abuse in numbers almost equal to women. The courts ignore it, and in some cases even laugh in the faces of men who report it as part of their divorce testimony. Successive governments have lavished taxpayer money on women’s and feminist groups in support of Domestic Violence studies, programmes, and shelters, ignoring the fact that 85% of such accusations made by women during divorce proceedings are known to be false. ”

“Yet Canadian men continue to suffer, continue to bleed, and continue to die at the hands of their female partners. Do Canadian men not deserve equal help from their government in preventing, escaping, and recovering from such abuse? Do Canadian men not deserve even one single dollar in their fight for protection and justice? Is there any party or any party leader that has the guts to make this an election issue and to step up to defend and protect men from their female abusers? There are a large number of votes out there that are waiting to be cast for the party that does.”

About Me

I am Politically active and right of centre on most issues with the odd exception such as legalization of "Mary Jane".
I advocate on changes to Family Law - an incredibly dysfunctional arena where parents are pitted against one another and children are the victims.
My picture will sometimes show me as a younger man simply because I like them.

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Leading causes of Injury to Women 2006

In 2006, unintentional falls were the leading cause of nonfatal injury among women of every age group, and rates generally increased with age. Women aged 65 years and older had the highest rate of injury due to unintentional falls (59.7 per 1,000 women), while slightly more than 19 per 1,000 women aged 18–34 and 35–44 years experienced fall-related injuries. Unintentional injuries sustained as motor vehicle occupants were the second leading cause of injury among 18- to 34-year-olds (18.7 per 1,000), while unintentional overexertion was the second leading cause of injury among women aged 35–44 and 45–64 years (13.7 and 9.3 per 1,000, respectively). Among women aged 65 years and older, being unintentionally struck by or against an object was the second leading cause of injury (5.7 per 1,000).

Injury related Emergency Department Visits

Unintentional and intentional injuries each represented a higher proportion of emergency department (ED) visits for men than women in 2005. Among women and men aged 18 years and older, unintentional injuries accounted for 19.9 and 27.5 percent of ED visits, respectively, while intentional injuries, or assault, represented 1.4 and 2.7 percent of visits, respectively. Among both women and men, unintentional injury accounted for a higher percentage of ED visits among those living in non-metropolitan areas, while adults living in metropolitan areas had a slightly higher percentage of ED visits due to intentional injury.